Struggle to avoid standard comprehensives

By Alasdair Palmer

12:01AM BST 23 Sep 2007

Analysis

Every seat in the vast hall is taken and there is a buzz of excitement as the main speaker takes to the podium. But this isn't a movie star raising money for charity. This is the Great Hall at Latymer Grammar, in Edmonton, north London.

I'm in the audience. Like thousands of other parents all over the country, I hope to get my child into a selective state school. The odds are not good: there are at least 10 applicants for every place at Latymer, a ratio that is repeated in most selective state schools.

The squeeze is a consequence of the fact that private schools, the traditional middle-class means of escape from the "bog standard comprehensive", have now become too expensive for most of the middle-class.

If you have two children, sending them both to a private day school is likely to cost you £24,000 a year; two at a boarding school will set you back £50,000. Even when both parents are earning, not many families can afford that sort of expenditure.

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So increasing numbers are turning to selective state schools. The deadline for applications is next week. Grammar schools await the deluge.

While a few Labour MPs insist that reluctance to send your child to the local comprehensive is simply a sign of social snobbery, the reality is that the evidence showing bright, or even average, children do better at selective schools is overwhelming.

Pupils at selective schools, whether private or state, are much more likely to get three A grades at A-Level. While the proportion of A grades awarded has grown by three per cent over the past five years in comprehensives, it has risen by more than double that in selective schools.

The state sector has put up teachers' pay and pensions in recent years: it has cost private schools a lot to keep ahead, and there is no indication that the rate of inflation in pay is going to slow.

Private schools are already on the trajectory that ends with only hedge fund managers, rock stars and other multimillionaires being able to afford their fees. The supply of selective state schools is unlikely to increase, for the Government is opposed on principle to selection.

Could increasing the supply of private schools bring their fees back down to an affordable level? David Green, who has been instrumental in setting up a new independent primary school in London, believes that the only way to reduce the pressure on selective state schools is to make it much easier for people to start and run schools outside the state system.

He is looking for £10 million from the City to fund six more schools. He aims to keep fees to no more than £5,000 a year: the amount it costs to educate each child in a state school.

"What the Government should do is give parents vouchers worth £5,000 to spend at any school. The evidence from Sweden is that this will significantly increase the quality of education everywhere. But will our Government do it? Not a chance!"

Which means that there will be a lot more anxious middle-income parents praying that their child will be among the one in 10 who pass the exams for a selective state school.